Connolly side changes repeat the well established depressing pattern of journey time downgrades on Sligo, Rosslare, Belfast and DART.

The main changes affect Sligo and Rosslare trains which are up to 16 minutes slower with several others being 8 or more minutes slower.

There are a few inconsequential changes to other services including many DART trains having an extra two minutes dropped into the schedule.

An oddity is the extension of the 1730 from Drogheda which now runs to Pearse. It is not clear what set now forms the 1840 to Drogheda although the 1718 from Maynooth now terminates in Connolly rather than Pearse.

The evening train from Rosslare no longer arrives in Connolly before the departure of either the 2050 to Belfast or 2052 to Drogheda.

Irish Rail must really want to close the lone to Wexford. The speed south of Gorey has got so poor that a racing cyclist would beat the train. I understand that there are capacity problems from Bray into Dublin, but there's no excuse for the speeds at the southern end of the line.

Many Rosslare trains are almost unchanged in terms of overall times. Some are slower: is this an attempt to iron out some punctuality problems?

What is truly disgraceful is that despite the online bookings being available post December 9th, the Irish Rail website says you can't book beyond Dec 9th (you get this if you click on Timetables on the home page). In fact the journey planner does allow such bookings. This is the situation at 5pm on today November 20.

Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing in the crazy world of the Irish Rail website?

Customers are advised to check times on all routes, as many departure times have changed, including at intermediate stations.

Iarnród Éireann advises customers that a number of changes to its timetables across all routes will take effect from Sunday 10th December.

Customers on all routes are advised to check times before travel as there have been minor changes to departure and arrival times on many services, including both earlier and later departure times, and including intermediate stations.

Please search the journey planner above for full details, or see printed timetables here.

The most significant changes are (from Sunday 10th December):

Journey time improvements of between 3 and 10 minutes to services on the Dublin Heuston to Cork route, following line improvement works

Journey time improvements of between 2 and 12 minutes between Limerick and Dublin (including via Limerick Junction) following line improvement works, and Limerick Station signaling and platform works

Journey time improvements of between 2 and 6 minutes to services between Portlaoise and Dublin Heuston, following line improvement works

Minor changes to departure times on routes in the Dublin area (including DART, Northern Commuter, Maynooth/M3, Kildare, and Grand Canal Dock to Newbridge) to improve punctuality

Services which currently depart Cork at 20 past the hour will depart at 25 past the hour (e.g 09.20 will depart at 09.25)

Sundays only 08.20 Limerick to Heuston; 11.30 Portlaoise to Heuston; 18.25 & 19.25 Heuston to Limerick will all stop additionally at Monasterevin

Customers should particularly note the following services on the national network which will depart earlier than at present:

05.40 Longford to Dublin Pearse is advanced to depart at 05.35
09.45 Limerick Junction to Waterford is advanced to depart at 09.40
15.30 Heuston to Portlaoise is advanced to depart at 15.25
17.25 Limerick to Ballybrophy via Nenagh is advanced to depart at 17.20
Sundays only 09.40 Limerick to Limerick Junction is advanced to depart at 09.30
Sundays only 20.50 Cork to Mallow is advanced to depart at 20.40

Iarnród Éireann plans a further and more significant timetable revision in the first half of 2018 to enhance DART frequency, off-peak Maynooth services and other changes, subject to a full public consultation process, and the approval of the National Transport Authority.

The thing is that timetable isn't the DART timetable, it's the DART and Commuter timetable in one file.

As someone who uses both the DART and the Commuter it's instinctive to use the timetable that contains all services due to connections etc.

Still no excuse though - should have been updated or at least had a link to both the old and the new timetables, not like the timetable was decided yesterday.

It’s primarily the DART timetable though, as all the commuter routes have their own route timetables. It’s generally the last of the main timetables to be published, based on previous changes.

As to your final comment, the final timetable was all decided pretty much at the last minute from what I can gather, given that the unions indicated late in the day that they wouldn’t accept any roster changes until after the pay negotiations were concluded.

That doesn’t leave a lot of time to get all of the pdfs prepared and get the Christmas/New Year pdf timetables done too.

Into day 3 of the new weekday timetable and everyday the 07.25 to Waterford has been losing 6-7 minutes between Sallins/Newbridge. I am trying to work out what's causing it but can't see other services such as those using the bay platform blocking it.

None of the 3 early morning services have yet to arrive on time either, partly because of the above but not exclusively.

If referring to Sallins, not the issue. The N7 bypass link one was lifted before the new timetable commenced. You will see Cork/Galway services either side nor any other services during the day were not impacted since last Sunday. Strangely it reduced the day after I posted and completed schedule on Friday but starting to increase from 6 to 10 minutes again this week while others are not.

There was one at Carlow (lifted) now but while it had an impact most was down to poor scheduling. One or two bad schedules decisions and the problem on other routes as well. Daily 10-15 delays isn't a TSR problem.